Selina's Portfolio

What key message do you want your audience to understand about you as they view your artwork? How did you communicate this message?

I want my audience to understand that although I am an introverted person, I really like to be working or going out with other people. A lot of people say that I am very organized, but I believe that I could be very messy and all over th place sometimes. so, I added shapes that doesn’t really align with each other, but still doesn’t look horrible. My biggest hobby is volleyball. I love playing volleyball. It something that I enjoy doing with my friends. Another thing that I love doing in my spare time is traveling with family or friends. Some other facts about me is that I am Canadian, which coincidently, I also enjoy fall the most out of the 4 seasons; which is why I have a maple leaf in my art piece.

During the creation of your artwork, how did you take risks and experiment in order to effectively express your intended message?

I was really hesitant of how I want the elements to look like. It was either a normal picture, or make the style match the way I drew myself. I tried to experiment by printing some pictures that I wanted, but it didn’t turn out as good. So, I tried sketching over the pictures, which was actually pretty good. It connected me with the message that I wanted to express.

1. Cultural Influence on Aesthetic Choices
   After meeting Kool Koor and learning about his artistic journey, how do you think his background in the graffiti culture of the Bronx influenced his aesthetic choices in the techniques and styles he demonstrated? 
   
   I think the surrounding of Kool Koor’s childhood has significantly impacted his artistic style because of his family’s background as artists, and the way his peers rebells to the authority. The hip-hop culture of his hometown Bronx has shaped how Kool Koor expresses his ideas, feeling, identity and emotions as he was influenced by the technique (graffiti) of the other artists. This changed how he creates art right now as he continues to get inspirations from his past.
   
   
2. Environmental Impact on Art Creation
   Considering Kool Koor’s shift from street art to studio work, how do you think different environments (like the streets versus a classroom) impact an artist’s creative process and choices? In what ways did you feel these environmental influences while trying out his painting style?
   
   I believe making art in the streets is very different to making art in a studio because street art could be illegal, only if the artist got permission to create art in that public area. creating illegal art could also mean that the artists is making it in the middle of the night. This could cause the strokes of the art works to not be as detailed as art pieces that were created in a studio.
   
   
3. Personal Reflection on Aesthetic Development
   What aspects of your culture or environment do you think will influence your future artistic choices for your self-portrait mixed media artwork? How can you incorporate elements from your own background into your artwork to express your unique identity?
   
   I think my culture and experiences would also, like Kool Koor, greatly influence the way I express myself in my self-portraits. For example, I have a hobby of volleyball, so there will most likely be some type of element from volleyball in my own background.

(group art piece)

Last Friday, we went on a school art trip to the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP). The main artworks that were displayed were from El Anatsui and other masterpieces from Musée d’Orsay Paris.

In what was can an exhibition influence the ideas, beliefs and experiences of an audience?

exhibitions can both change and influence their audiences by strategically arranging the artworks in a specific order (color, theme, artists, time period, etc.) This organization makes the viewer’s experience better as it creates deeper engagement with the art.

After the Red Moon:

the first thing we saw when we entered the exhibition was the El Anatsui’s After the Red Moon. Part of the art work, the wall, was separated in a different room as the other 2 piece. I think this is because The Wall has a different feeling than The waves and The World, so the designers arranged The Wall to be by itself in another area of the exhibition.

Path to modernity:

One thing that I noticed in the “Path to Modernity” exhibition was the spacing of the paintings. For example, the curators of the exhibition strategically arranged Vincent Van Gogh’s artworks in a really opened space as they knew how popular it is. One thing my peers and I really liked was how the curators intentionally put all the paintings with a cat in the same room. It made the whole experience more interesting as we got kind of bored at the end:)

This is a art sketchbook cover that I designed on my own, and it reflects my artistic style and interests. The vibrant colors, geometric shapes, and playful composition showcase my love for abstract shape and art. The use of the letters “ART” represents my passion of art, and colors as I used the primary colors to shade it. The inclusion of the text “VOLLEYBALL” and net represents my love for volleyball. I used a realistic style for this because I want to have a combination of abstract and realistic factors. As I look at this cover, I can see the evolution of my artistic skills and the development of my visual language. The confident use of color and the dynamic interplay of shapes demonstrate my growth in expressing myself through visual art. This sketchbook cover is a visual representation of my artistic journey, and it will be a constant source of inspiration as I continue to explore and expand my creative abilities. I’m proud of this design and excited to see how my art will continue to evolve in the future.

The Game:

The theme of the game we created was touching fish. we chose this topic because we wanted more people to come, so we came up with something most people in middle school does and interested in. For each person to play, they will need 2 tickets. Then we would blindfold them and give them the “fishing rod”. The player will try to get a fish and the color of the fish caught would determine the prize.

Making Progress:

Our team actually worked really well together. We would help each other with the harder things like cutting fish. One conflict that we went through was printing too much fish. At first we thought of making the fish double sided, but it didn’t work out since the sides were flipped. We ended up buying 2 pools so that the probability of each pool wouldn’t change

Good Things & Improvements:

• There was a lot of things that went well in this probability fair. For example, the fact that our stand was so popular we ran out of prizes. Although this sounds like a bad thing, but the more numbers the data includes the easier to calculate.
• Some improvements that we needed to make was collecting data. At the start of the fair, everyone thought that someone would be doing the data collecting, but no one was actually taking it. This caused some missing data.

Theoretical & Experimental:

The theoretical probability of wining the grand prize was actually 3.5%, but in real life, there was 5/60 people that won the rainbow fish. This caused the 2 probability to have a difference of 4.83% since the experimental probability was 8.33%.

Main theme:

The abuse of power that I researched about for this project is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. It showed how the government violated the human rights of the citizen that lived in the Tuskegee community and targeted African Americans, which caused the death of a lot of people. The most shocking thing that I learned in this research is that families were aware of the health of their loved ones, but never thought of looking through this study deeper as they trusted the government’s medical so much.

The Presentation:

The main thing that I did to prepare for my Pecha-Kucha presentation were finding the picture and information for each slide. I struggled a lot in being able to memorise this whole presentation as I didn’t have a lot of practice in these kind of things.

Personal Growth:

My language arts skills developed a lot in the past year as I improved my writing skills as I am able to research deeper about the sources that I used and write a CER about it. The top 5 books that I read this year is Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, Heir of Fire, I Lived on Butterfly Hill, and The Endgame.

Planning Docs:

For my previous language arts unit, we’ve been assessed on our communication skills, which some accomplishments that I’m proud of comparing the pre assessment to the summative, is my ability to align my evidence to my claim in the planning docs. My focus on connecting evidence with claims had led to significant growth in my CER essay development as this can make my arguments stronger. Things that I would like to change in the future is being able to deepen my reasoning in my notes as the reasoning sometimes can be a little vague.

Socratic Seminar:

One thing that I am proud of in my discussions are my growth in collaboration and listening skills. It has allowed me to contribute more effectively to group discussions. Additionally, it also helped me improve from shifting topics rapidly to building onto my peer’s ideas.​ One thing that I should improve on is keeping eye contact when my peers are sharing.

My TTG goal was to improve on my effective collaborator. I think I improved a lot because I’m starting to get more comfortable to ask questions to my teachers. For example, I think I struggle a little bit on math, so I’ll ask Ms. Ari about the work sheet. I’m also getting more confident in speaking in front of the class. I used to get really nervous when the teacher calls on me, but now there isn’t that much nerve in me. I think it might have been because I am a lot more confident in the subjects we are learning in class.